Asian countries are taking extraordinary measures to keep students from dropping out — and it's working

Closing the achievement gap between the United States’
disadvantaged students and the rest of our students has been the
major focus of federal education policy since 1965, when the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed.

Compared to the countries with more successful education
systems in the world, how is the US doing? The answer is not very
well.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development just
released a very revealing report on low-performing students in the countries
that participate in the Programme for International Student
Assessment survey. In places like Hong Kong, Shanghai, South
Korea, and Vietnam, fewer than 5 percent of 15-year-old students
performed below the basic-proficiency level in reading,
mathematics and science.

But, in the United States, 12 percent—half a million
students—fell below the same level in all three subjects. The
performance of the average student in the US falls below the OECD
average for all 64 countries in its survey, and far below the
average for the major industrial countries. The proportion of our
students who score below the OECD basic score is also well above
the average for the major industrial countries. Equally
troubling, the proportion of our students who score in the upper
ranges of the OECD spectrum is also well below the average.

Some argue that the US’s lagging behind has nothing to do
with our schools: The US has a much higher proportion of
disadvantaged poor and minority students than higher-performing
countries. But the data show that37 countries outperform the USin the degree
to which socioeconomic status predicts low achievement.

Both Vietnam and Latvia have far smaller percentages of
low-performing students than the US If it is poverty that
accounts for the US’s high proportion of low-performing students,
it is hard to explain how these two countries are doing better
than the United States. Vietnam’s average
income, adjusted for purchasing power, stands at
just one-tenth of the US average, Latvia’s at less than one
half.

The OECD also tracks the proportion of low-income and minority
students who score at high levels on their assessment. This
metric shows that the US has a smaller proportion of low-income
high achievers than all but a few of the countries studied.

It turns out that a number of East Asian countries, which account
for the majority of nations with high-average performance, also
have the lowest percentage of low-performing students. Indeed,
Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea all rank in the
global top ten in terms of achievement as measured
by OECD’s PISA, and each of these jurisdictions has
less than 10 percent of its students scoring at
the lowest levels. That makes it clear that improving the
performance of the low performers does not require a country to
sacrifice the performance of the average or top performers.

East Asian countries, like
Hong Kong, have the lowest percentage of low-performing
students.REUTERS/Victor
Fraile

What are these countries doing to cope with this dynamic that we
are not? The answer begins with the observation that, in the
American system, as students start to fall behind, they find it
harder and harder to comprehend what is going on in class and
fall even farther behind as they go through the years. Their
morale sinks, their embarrassment rises, they stop coming to
school, and then they drop out.

The East Asian countries essentially deal with this downward
spiral by stopping it before it gains momentum. They are able to
do this because they start from a commitment to the idea that all
students can and will meet high standards as they progress
through the years. This is not a slogan. It is the basis of their
policy and practice. The policy makers and educators in these
countries whom the researchers in my organization have talked
with seem to understand that if students are allowed to fall behind, failure will feed on
itself.

In Singapore, students undergo a thoroughliteracy and mathematics assessmentwhen they
enter first grade. Those whose diagnosis indicates they need
extra help get it. They get more teachers and teachers who
specialize in students who are behind. In other countries, these
students not only get more teachers, but also the best teachers.
The teachers understand that they areexpected to do whatever is necessaryto get
students who start behind back up to speed as soon as possible.
If that means coming into school earlier in the day, staying
longer, or coming in on Saturday, then that is what they
do.

Hong Kong has a special six-month program for immigrant children before they enter
the regular schools and provides resources to schools that can be used for
supplementary lessons, extracurricular activities, and to
organize orientation sessions. In Shanghai, city schools are
paired with rural schools serving low-income students. The city
schools help the rural schools with curriculum,
instructional strategies, and management systems.

The career ladder for principals and teachers is structured so
that city teachers and school administrators cannot climb the ladder without providing this kind of
help to schools serving large numbers of disadvantaged students.
Japan subsidizes voluntary activities undertaken by
university students to help families that need it, assisting
low-performing students with their homework, tutoring them, and
helping parents interact with the school system.

Ability grouping is largely avoided in the top-performing
countries, and, if utilized, is for the minimum time necessary.
Schools with high concentrations of low-performers get more
teachers and are often asked to partner with high-performing
schools.

Japan subsidizes university students who help tutor
low-performing students.Yuya
Shino/Reuters

The teachers in schools with high concentrations of low-income
students make the same amount of money as teachers in schools
serving students in wealthy communities, unlike the United
States, where they typically make less. Teachers as a whole are
also more likely to make more money relative to the high status professions than is
the case in the United States.

But the expectation and insistence that all students will meet
high standards is the single most important explanation of the
success of these Asian countries with students of every
description, including disadvantaged students. But it is
realistic only in countries in which the progression of topics as
a student goes through school is fully specified and agreed on
through the whole state or country. In countries like the US,
where there is often no such agreement at the state level,
students may enter a classroom having widely different knowledge
in any given topic.

A teacher who, in general, gears her lessons to the average
student will necessarily leave students who have never studied
the topic behind. In places that spell out clearly what topics
are supposed to be studied in what order as the student moves
from one year to the next, the teacher knows which topics have
been studied by all the students and can count on all the
students having mastered those topics. This does not require the
state to mandate a full curriculum. Teachers are still expected
to develop their lesson plans. But all teachers are expected to
get their students through the same topics at about the same
point in their development.

If the key advantage enjoyed by disadvantaged students in these
Asian countries is the conviction that all students can perform
at high levels, then the main obstacle faced by disadvantaged
students in the United States is the high degree to which
different expectations for students from different educational
backgrounds are embedded in our culture. Larger and larger shares
of our future workforce are coming from students whose background
would predict low academic performance.

If we continue to expect little from them, we can confidently
expect to get little. The experience of the East Asian countries
shows what can happen if policy is based on the assumption that
all children can learn at high levels. And it shows, in detail,
how policy has to change to make that possible. The high
proportion of low performers in the United States is not a
function of poverty. It is a function of our inability to act as
if we actually believed the slogan we have long embraced in
theory but not in practice: the idea that all children can learn.